How do you set insets on a panel?

I have a very simple program using Swing. It creates a JFrame, and within that frame I create a panel using BorderLayout. The panel contains a ComboBox and a Label that changes depending on the selected item in the combo box. I was wondering, can I create insets for the panel without using a grid bag layout and setting constraints? Thank you for taking the time to read this and for any help you can give me!